St. Louis turf company cashes in after busy summer

Byrne and Jones Sports, a Maryland Heights-based company that builds and installs athletic fields and tracks, is having its busiest summer ever.

Thanks to a cyclical field turf market, the company will post $14 million in revenue this year, Britt Taulbee, president of the company, said.

Taulbee said most schools’ synthetic playing fields had reached their 10- to 12-year shelf life and required replacement.

“This time around (clients) are much more educated,” he said. “When the technology came out in the 2000s, it was so new that nobody really knew what worked and what didn’t. Now owners are putting in second fields and know the right questions to ask and what is important to help with longevity of the (fields).”

Synthetic turf, since being introduced in the 1960s, has been reimagined over the last decade, said Terrie Ward, of the Synthetic Turf Council.

“By the 1990s, the first synthetic turf systems with sand and rubber infill were introduced, which dramatically improved player performance and safety,” she said. “Today’s synthetic turf... combines the playing characteristics, look and feel of natural turf with the advantages of increased frequency of usage, extra revenue generation, safety, longer playing sessions, fewer canceled games and (the) lowest cost per playing day.”

Synthetic turf is close to a $1 billion industry, Ward said.

Taulbee said the company is anticipating completing more than 30 projects nationally, including 22 athletic surfaces in the St. Louis area worth more than $9 million.

Byrne and Jones Sports is a division of Byrne and Jones Construction, led by Bob Byrne, which expects revenue approaching $50 million this year, Taulbee said.

The company didn’t formally establish its sports division until 2010, but it began taking sports-related projects in the mid-2000s as the economy began to sputter and Byrne and Jones was looking for more deal flow.

Byrne and Jones Sports is working on local projects this year at Francis Howell North, Francis Howell Central, the Wentzville School District, the Parkway School District and Scott Air Force Base, among others.

The company is also working on fields at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Met Life Stadium in New Jersey and Illinois State University in Bloomington, Ill.